Functional Skills English Writing

Improving your Writing Skills

For the writing part of the Functional Skills assessment, you will be required to

complete TWO writing tasks.

Each task will give you the information you need about the format and content of the

piece of writing.

This writing task is taken from one of our Sample Assessments (FS English Writing

Level 1 SAM 2):

The instructions tell you that you have to write an article for a newsletter, so the first

thing to think about is the style and format.

How does an article in a newspaper or newsletter look? What kind of language does

it use?

Now think about the content: the bullet points in the instructions tell you what you need

to include in your article – you should use these as the minimum information to be

presented

In this particular case, you need to include:

Your job – Your were a steward – the first bullet point tells you what it was that you did

The groups/bands that played at the festival – here you can either, use your

imagination and invent the names of some bands, or you can talk about bands that

you know

The ‘Somton Calling’ three-day music festival took place last week. You were a steward at the event and had a wonderful time. Your boss asks you to write an article about your experience for the council newsletter that goes to the Somton residents. Include in your article:

Details of your jobs at the festival (collecting tickets, showing people to seats, giving people directions).

The groups/bands that played at the festival.

The type of people who attended. It is suggested that you write an article of between 100 and 150

words

Functional Skills English Writing

The type of people who attended – remember this is a Music Festival – what sort of

people would you expect? Have you been to a Music Festival? Who else was there

– use this information to help you complete the content.

You can use this to plan your content:

Para 1 – Introduction – what you are writing about

Para 2 to Para 5 - information to cover the bullet points

Para 6 – Conclusion – Summary

What should you put in the Introduction and Conclusions?

Your introduction should give your reader a flavour of the rest of the article – your tone

and style and what your article will be cover.

Your conclusion should summarise your experience and add any other relevant

details, such as perhaps, upcoming festivals and concerts.

On the following pages, you can see an example of the sort of article you could write:

Functional Skills English Writing

My Plan

Introduction – Somton Calling, 3 day music

festival, had a good time – be stylish here with

words

Paragraph 1 – I enjoyed it all, but especially the

ticket collecting and checking, and making sure

that people could find their way around – say

something about toilets because that is how I spent

most time

And don’t forget that family who couldn’t find

their way back from the food tents! – talk about

ticket collecting and number of times I gave

directions to the toilets.

Family from burger van back to seats

Paragraph 2 – include BZ Crew and Dizzee

Crazzee because they got the best response from the

crowd – BZ Crew are rappers and introduced some

new material, Dizzee Crazzee plays saxophone

(Jazz)

Paragraph 3 – talk about the fans – the corduroy

Jazz Club (make a joke?), and the rock fans –

Friday night was rock band night and this was

families mostly, Saturday was Jazz day and

Sunday was for the youngsters with Drum and

Bass

Paragraph 4 – Say how successful it was and list

the bands who have said they will come next year

Functional Skills English Writing

– BZ Crew and Dizzee Crazzee have signed up for

next year – no-one else so far, but festival will

happen again.

Functional Skills English Writing

♪♫♯ Somton Calling ♯♫♪

What a fabulous experience was shared by all at the

annual three-day music festival that is Somton Calling.

This year, I had the privilege to be working as a steward

for all three days so not only did I get to see some of my

favourite bands for free, but also, I got to be there with

hundreds more people who came just for the music.

I had great fun checking and collecting tickets and I lost

count of the number of times I gave directions to the toilets

– more signs next year I think! I met a lovely family who

couldn’t find their seats after they had been for a burger

from the many food and drink tents!

And what a treat that music was – music for all tastes from

Rock and Roll to Drum and Bass, everything was covered.

The BZ Crew gave the crowd a buzz with some new raps

on Sunday’s finale stage and Dizzee Crazzee gave us a

saxophone solo to die for on the Saturday Jazz stage.

All three days were busy and we were rushed off our feet.

Still, the people who came were all really great – there were

families with young children who had come for the rock

music on Friday – lots of face painting and juggling in the

crowd, then, we had the old Jazz crew with their corduroy

elbow patches and smelly pipes on Saturday. These were

followed by the legendary Drum and Bass crowd on

Sunday with loud music, bubbles galore and lots of fun.

Once again, Somton Calling proved to be a great success

and Dizzee Crazzee and BZ Crew have both already

confirmed for next year.

279 words